Other stuff

Archive for November, 2009

Almost three years after it was actually released, I am finally in possession of my own copy of Lost Girls. After some unfortunately failed attempts at acquiring a copy (initial legal wranglings, price of the original three volume edition, vague embarassment at ordering one through work), it is finally in my sweaty mitts. I will attempt to give some sort of lengthy critique once I’ve got through it (assuming I’m still able to type and that my hands aren’t withered claws), but as homework for you, you might want to have a gander atmy original postsabout the debacle. More to come soon (fnarr).

My fragile frame seems to have recovered now, so I seem to be back in rudish health. Which is good. I was tempted to go into ludicrously unpleasant detail as to the particulars of my explosive emissions, but good taste and my own potential nausea have on this one occasion prevailed. Instead, I thought I’d point you at a couple of things to listen to.

First up, regular readers might recall my mentioning a podcast that I had designed a logo for (irregular readers might want to have a look at it here) and wondering aloud if I’d be able to link to it. Well, the show’s host has given me the go ahead to link to the latest edition which can be downloaded by clicking on that blue bit back there. I think the link degrades after a week, so you only have five days left thanks to my tardiness. It’s definitely worth a listen as Markuss has a nice ear for a tune (two in fact) and generally plays an interesting selection of stuff over the hour’s duration. If you don’t want to do no downloading, you can stream earlier shows through Mixcloud. Like this one, which featured my theme choice.

I should probably mention the theme thing too. Each podcast features seven songs which are loosely linked together for an unnamed reason, be it something in the title, the music or possibly even in the band names. These are chosen by whoever manages to be the first to guess what the theme of the previous podcast was. As I have no desire to display Markuss’es mailing address here, if any of you want to have a go, please forward a guess or any other correspondence to the usual address around these parts. Yes, the Contact icon is still refusing to behave, so if you want to email things to theweakened at gmail dot com, then you might be in with a chance.

All being well, I should be appearing in a future webisode in early December.

My second tip comes from my constant source of fascination Cook’dandBomb’d. No, wait, come back. Fascinated by the forums though I am (while still being unable to join them out of some churning existential dread), this doesn’t involve you having to visit them. I should also point out to some detractors that all of the writings on the forums are not the outpourings of my own schizoid subconcious. But I digress. What I am directing you to are Chris Morris’ Radio One Shows. I only spotted that they’d put them up for individual downloading/streaming a couple of weeks ago and I can’t recommend you’re giving them a listen highly enough. Seriously. If twenty-five hour’s worth of funnier radio exists, I have yet to happen upon it (sacrilegious though it might seem, I’m including Clue there). It probably helps that I’m vaguely nostalgic for a lot of the music played there too, but most of that’s pretty cracking. Honestly, you owe it yourself to go and listen to these now. If you’re unsure, I’d highly recommend starting with show 22 or 23, to hear him at the top of his game, then just go back to the start and listen to the lot. There’s such a lot of great stuff in there.

MARVEL at him not actually faking the death of Michael Heseltine like every news outlet still reports!

WISH that there wouldn’t be a press furore today were someone to doctor a Bruno Brookes tape until he says “Cunt,” and then broadcast it on Boxing Day afternoon!

LAUGH at the sound of a pencil being pushed into dead Johnny Walker’s larynx.

That’s me spent for the night. Service will return when you ring for it, you filthy peeg dogs.

It would appear that my novel writing attempt for the month is well and truly scuppered. At time of writing, I’m well over seven thousand words behind where I should be and foresee no way of catching up. My hopes of getting something done on Sunday were dashed by some kind of lurgy that led to my chundering my guts up, which wasn’t really conducive to working and wrote the rest of the day off too. This combined with my not really seeing where any of it was really going and not particularly enjoying writing any of the characters (save for two perhaps, though even that bit felt a little too much like Peep Show fan fiction for me to be really happy with it) leaves me pretty content to let the thing die. Some bits may be salvageable, though I’m not entirely sure what for. I might instead use the month to try and knock last years into a more satisfyingly servicable state, though I’m not promising owt. As such, anyone who has requested a copy recently, please wait until early November and I’ll try to make the ending less horrifying.

Terrible couple of days. Boozing last night led to a complete lack of work today. Combination of hang over, depression, massive lack of inspiration and uncertainty about directions have led to my spending most of the day staring into space and failing to write a word. Am now about four thousand words behind. If nothing comes out tomorrow, I fear I will have to abort. Which is a bit shit.

Contact icon remains fucked. Well wishers may wish well by addressing writings to theweakened at gmail dot com.

Missed ‘Four out of Thirty’ by failing to return home until going on 2:00 last night. Failed to get much writing done, but did manage to fit some in while at work, which possibly bodes well for the future. Knackered today, unsurprisingly, but have managed to get a bit done. Now have three scenes on the go, one entirely new and unrelated to the original three in everything but theme so far, which might make it easier to crowbar a link into it. Hit just over 7,000 words, which is about a thousand under the average, but not too bad. Here’s an extract.

I was far from being one of the cool kids back then. I’d like to argue that such things no longer apply to a man of my age, but I still have that nagging doubt that everybody in the world is considerably more well liked than I am. I’m sure that most people have moments of self doubt along those lines at one time or another. My moments are different to theirs, in that I know that I’m right. Not that I’d consider myself despised by many people, or even disliked by that many. Simply that I know the hopeless emptiness of my own condition and, having spoken to a number of people in my days upon this planet, I can rest safe in my assumption that they are doing more interesting things, having more fun, earning more money, sleeping with more people and generally doing better than I ever have or am likely to do. I had that suspicion back then too, though I had more reason to, to some degree.

Hopefully its not all going to be this autobiographical, though I’ve a horrible feeling it might become so. Sigh. Or insert smiling face made of punctuation. Whichever you’re more comfortable with. No plans for tomorrow evening and Saturday daytime is my own, so hopefully things should be on course by Sunday. Unless they’re not. Which is likely. Oh well, it looks as though I’m in it for the long haul…

Contact icon remains fucked. Well wishers may wish well by addressing writings to theweakened at gmail dot com. For those of you who aren’t friends with me on Facebook, I’m offering up the opportunity for you to decide what the 10,000th word will be (5,000th was perceived). Should you wish to make a suggestion, please do so through whatever channels you feel might work. Email would probably be wiser though.

Relatively successful evening’s work. Another failure on the working at work work plan, but made up for with a night of productivity. All three scenes started over the past few days are now complete. There is a faint relationship forming between two of them (though not the two I expected) so that might bode well for something resembling a plot eventually emerging. Still not entirely sure I like any of the strands I’m going for. It’s all a little geekier than I’d hoped and it almost seems like it wants to steer itself into some sort of genre piece, but hopefully I can keep the characters at bay. Major thing I did learn – listening to Nurse With Wound while trying to construct a scene that feels faintly eerie can make one come close to voiding one’s bowels. I’ve ended the day just short of five thousand three hundred, which is three hundred over the average, which is pleasing. Tomorrow night I will most likely be drunk, so I can’t guarantee an update or frankly any productivity then. Still, we shall see.

Contact icon remains fucked. Well wishers may wish well by addressing writings to theweakened at gmail dot com.

Bit of a crap day all in all. Started a third scene, that at least feels like part of a novel in that it contains some narrative drive behind it, but still have no real clue as to where it’s going or how this thread might relate to the others. Had no time to write at work, only managed about four hundred words before having to nip out to a gallery opening and failed to produce anything productive after returning home. Just shy of two thousand five hundred at the point of giving up for the night, about seven hundred words behind where I should be. The fact that I know no one else participating is starting to hit home, making me feel isolated and more than a little glum about the prospect of increasing my normal levels of helpless loneliness for another four weeks. If nothing starts coalescing in my mind by the end of this weekend, then I may just abandon the project. The fact that I had half an idea in my head last year seems to have made far more of a difference than I’d initially imagined it might. Oh well, cancelled my plans for tomorrow night, deleted all games from my computer (I shall miss you Spider Solitaire, sob) and hope to have a vaguely productive Tuesday. We’ll see, eh?

Contact icon remains fucked. Well wishers may wish well by addressing writings to theweakened at gmail dot com.

Bit of a wobbly first day, but it seems to be working out. One and a half scenes written, the first of which I’m quite pleased with. As yet the second is just dialogue and feels more like a sketch than a scene at the moment. I have no idea how the two relate to one another yet, which was causing me a little concern until it occurred to me that that’s part of the fun of doing this. Managed around 700 words in my first hour of work then spent about four hours procrastinating, pissing about with Spider Solitaire and panicing that there was no way in hell that I was going to finish in time as I’m hoping to be out of the country at the end of the month. Eventually got over that and finished the day on 2,070 words, which gives me a bit of a head start on the planned 1,333 per day. Am supposed to go out for the next three nights, which might see the death of the project, but as of this moment I’m almost vaguely pleased. I am going to have to delete the Spiders though.

Contact icon remains fucked. Well wishers may wish well by addressing writings to theweakened at gmail dot com.